


Vestiges

by kitestringer



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-25
Updated: 2010-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitestringer/pseuds/kitestringer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney have <em>issues</em> after the events in "The Lost Boys"/"The Hive."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vestiges

**Author's Note:**

> Includes spoilers for the above-mentioned episodes. Can be considered either gen or John/Rodney UST, depending on how you look at it. Thanks to [](http://maverick4oz.livejournal.com/profile)[**maverick4oz**](http://maverick4oz.livejournal.com/), [](http://rustler.livejournal.com/profile)[**rustler**](http://rustler.livejournal.com/), and [](http://pirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**pirl**](http://pirl.livejournal.com/) for comments, suggestions, and encouragement.
> 
> Originally posted in January of 2006.

_Kneel._

It's like a crappy song he can't get out of his head. He wakes up hearing it, he hears it when he sleeps, it ricochets from one corner of his mind to another when he spars with Teyla, when he tries to eat, when he runs drills with his soldiers. It's there when he flies, too; he feels the jumper's confusion as it tries to decide how to fulfill this new nonsense command. He supposes it's a typical side effect of Wraith mind control, but he'll be damned if he's going to ask anyone and find out.

Everyone's concern when he returned was that he'd been fed on. (_Why, do I look older?_ he had asked, half joking. No one had laughed.) It had taken exposing his chest for Doctor Beckett's thorough inspection before he and Elizabeth entirely believed he hadn't been. It's hard for him to believe, too, when he really takes the time to think it over. That he's somehow escaped the fate of Sumner and Everett. Abrams. Gaul. Aiden Ford. People have joked about his charmed existence all his life—sometimes friendly joking, sometimes not so friendly—but it's true. His luck never seems to run out.

_Kneel._

Good thing, too. He knows in his bones that he would have given the Wraith everything they wanted, sooner or later.  


***

Rodney gets up off the bench-press machine to move the pin up another notch on the weight stack, annoyed that he's already needed to get up three times before this. He refuses to dwell on the fact that he was able to press twenty pounds more a week ago—not to mention the fact that, for the first time in his life, he actually _knows_ how much he's able to press. Intellectually, he understands he was strong for only a few hours and that he'll never be that way again, but his muscles seem unwilling to accept what they can no longer do. They twitch restlessly when he sits at his computer for too long, and, late at night, when he's the only one left in the lab and can't take it anymore, he finds himself on his way to the training room where the weight machines from Earth are kept.

The previous night, a marine had caught him in the act of trying to leg press far too much weight, and he can only imagine how ridiculous he looked—face red and dripping with sweat, teeth bared, snarling with effort. Apparently believing Rodney to be a moron, the marine coughed to disguise a laugh.

"Yes, yes, laugh it up," Rodney had panted. "I can have you back on Earth within a month, Lance Corporal...what was the name again?"

"I wasn't...I was just..."

"Your _name,_ please. Unless you'd rather carry on with the classic scenario you've initiated. Shall we go find some sand for you to kick in my face?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I'll just..." The marine backed toward the door, gesturing in the direction of the hallway with his thumb before fleeing.

Rodney doubts the Corporal will be back tonight.

He didn't tell Doctor Heightmeyer about the incident; as usual, she would have read far too much into it, when Rodney is perfectly capable of reading enough into it for both of them. In fact, come to think of it, it would probably be best not to mention his trips to the weight room to her at all. He has a feeling she already finds him quite pathetic enough.

He struggles to complete five reps before it feels like he's pulled something in his shoulder. Blinking through tears of pain and frustration, he thinks again about the enzyme—about how relatively easy it was to capture a Wraith, about how much it could help them if they did it again, about how if he just injected smaller doses this time, he could have his strength back and still maintain his cognitive abilities. He thinks about how ridiculous that entire idea is, and then he tries to remember how many times he's thought about it since he woke up this morning and realizes he's lost count.  


***

John picks up his guitar, tunes the A string, pauses, sets it down again. Flips through his book, tosses it back on the bed. Opens Freecell on his laptop, then solitaire, then Tetris, then

_Kneel._

remembers what it felt like to try to resist, like a fist closing around his mind and being able to struggle against only one finger of it at a time, and holding off one only means that the others dig in deeper, and then his muscles move and his mouth wants to form words and say—

"Goddammit." He pushes away from his desk hard enough to rattle his laptop awake. Halfway down the hall, he hears the door close behind him with an unsatisfying _whoosh._ Sometimes he really misses having a door that slams.

He isn't sure where he's going; he figures he'll find out when he gets there. It's very late, and the halls are nearly empty; what few people are awake are used to seeing him around at all hours and probably think nothing of it. He masks his agitation and greets each of them with a smile and a nod or a returned salute, although he glances past them or over their heads as he does, unable to look a single one in the eye. He walks and walks until he meets fewer and fewer people, toward the weight room, which he hasn't visited in a long time but is almost always deserted this late at night. As he approaches the door, he slows and then stops at the sound of clanking weights, accompanied by a heavy sigh. A very familiar heavy sigh.

"McKay?"

Rodney jumps at the sight of him standing in the doorway. He had been leaning over to adjust the weights on the leg-press machine, wearing his normal lab uniform rather than workout clothes, his light blue shirt half soaked through with sweat. His face is a worrisome shade of deep pink.

"Colonel," he says, breathlessly. Wincing, he stands up straight and takes a step away from the machine, looking cornered. "I was just...well. You're up late, hm?"

"Yes, and you're up late and...not in the lab." John cocks his head. "Everything okay?"

"Yes, yes, of course, yes, why wouldn't it be?" Rodney shoots a glance at the machine and then clasps his hands behind his back, regarding John with an overly innocent expression.

"You know, you _are_ allowed to use the weight room."

"Of course I am," Rodney says with a feeble laugh. "It's just that I...oh God." He sinks to the bench and rests his head in one hand. "Could you just not mention this to anyone?"

"Wait a second." John walks in and stops in front of where Rodney's sitting. "Now I remember. This is where Ferguson ran into you!"

"Ferguson? Who? What are you talking about?"

"Lance Corporal Ferguson? The one you threatened to send back to Earth? McKay, you can't just go around threatening my men—"

"Actually, I can go around threatening them all I want. I just can't follow through. And if your men are stupid enough to believe I have the authority to send them home for _laughing_ at me, I really don't see how _I'm_ to blame."

"Oh, yeah, now that makes sense." John would normally be more inclined to continue the argument, but Rodney looks so damn miserable that his heart probably wouldn't be in it. "Just try to keep the terror to a minimum, would you?"

"Believe me, Colonel, that was nothing. If your marines are intimidated by something that innocuous, maybe they could learn something about bravery from the people who work in my lab."

John snorts. "Right. You could come run drills with them."

Rodney smiles a little, but he looks painfully vulnerable. When Rodney gets like this, John thinks he can imagine him as a kid, before he'd developed the mask of arrogance he now wears almost constantly.

"So. Why don't you want people to know you're in here?"

There's a long pause. "Why do you think?" Rodney says, his voice barely a whisper.

John thinks he knows, but he wants Rodney to say it. He shrugs.

"Let's just say I... get why Ford didn't want to be weaned off the enzyme. Why he wanted to keep taking it."

John nods, looking down at the floor. "You going to leave Atlantis? Start your own merry band of outlaws?"

That gets a quick laugh, which John takes as a sign. He sits down on the bench of an adjacent machine. "You know what Ronon said to me about what you did?"

"Ronon said something?"

John makes an effort not to bristle at the way Rodney has instantly perked up. "Yeah, he said something. He said that if his taskmaster on his home planet had shown bravery like yours, a lot of his comrades would be alive instead of dead right now. And in case you haven't noticed, Ronon doesn't bother saying stuff like that too often."

Rodney swallows hard. "Bravery. Right. If you could see how terrifed I was... And it turned out to be completely pointless."

"The important thing is, you can look at yourself in the mirror and know what you're willing to do to save other people. You'll have that for the rest of your life." John's voice is sharp and impatient now; Rodney's watching him, silent and wide eyed. John stands and walks a few paces away, trying to regain his composure. "And your teammates know it, and _they'll_ have that every time they're in the field with you. Which part of that don't you get?"

"I get that you all almost died anyway. And that I can't go five minutes without..." Rodney makes a noise of frustration and pushes off the bench. "It was stupid. It was all just stupid. It was like something..."

John turns to him. "Like something what?"

Rodney's eyes dart around the room before meeting his. "Nothing." He clears his throat. "So what about you?"

"Me?"

"Did you come here to..." Rodney gestures toward the machines.

"Oh. No. I don't know. I was just...going for a walk."

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Well, you know me."

"Not an answer," Rodney says in a soft, singsong voice.

John grins. "Hey. Want to shoot some baskets?"

"Um, _no._ And where would we do that, anyway?"

"Two rooms down. One of the marines brought it with him. Talked Colonel Sumner into believing the net and ball counted as one personal item."

"Hm!" Rodney seems mildly impressed with the marine's powers of persuasion. "But no."

"Come on. We'll play horse. Ever play horse?"

"Colonel." Rodney takes a deep breath, his face starting to flush again. "Listen. I don't know exactly what happened on that hive ship—I mean, I'm talking about the kinds of things one doesn't mention in briefings—but I...well. I realize I'm unlikely to be anyone's first choice for this sort of thing, but...if you ever want to—"

"Thanks, Rodney." John's face is burning, but he keeps his voice is cool and easy. Rodney's hands have frozen in mid-gesticulation; for the first time since they returned, John imagines—really imagines—what it must have been like for him to do what he did. Rodney filling a syringe and injecting himself, with no one there to help him or encourage him. Rodney taking on Ford's men, when he'd probably never initiated a fight in his life. Rodney fixing the DHD and dialing Atlantis with his mind twisted in knots. "Same here. You know. If you ever..." John waves a hand back and forth between the two of them.

Rodney smiles his half-smile and looks down at the floor. "You know, we really ought to give these effusive public displays of affection a rest. They're...well, frankly, they're a bit embarrassing. I mean, what if someone were to walk in and find us like this?"

John laughs softly; it feels strange, like he's using muscles he hasn't needed in ages. "I'll try to control myself from now on."

"Hm. Good. I'd appreciate it."

"You know something you could do for me right now, Rodney?"

"What?" Rodney's expression is so full of naked hope that John has to turn away. He fiddles with the weights on one of the machines.

"One game of horse. _One._ Loser buys the winner a beer the next time we're on Earth."

Rodney snorts and looks up at the ceiling. "Meaning I'll be buying you beer. But fine." He glances at his watch. "I'm just about due for my nightly dose of humiliation, so why not?"

John pats his shoulder as they head for the door. "It's all really just physics, Rodney. You ought to be great at it."

"Tell that to my high school gym teacher." Pausing, Rodney raises a finger. "On second thought, don't. It would be healthier for his sanity if he could forget about my existence altogether."

"Your concern is touching," John says dryly. Then, as John had known he would, Rodney launches into the telling of several wildly improbable stories detailing the ways in which he had been wronged by his gym teacher and how he had exacted his revenge. One game of horse becomes five, night gives way to early morning, and, as John gloatingly spins the basketball on one finger and squints into the sunlight beginning to pour through the kaleidoscope windows, he realizes the song that had been stuck in his head has become something else entirely.


End file.
